Kurdistan Point of View: The Park Hotel Kempinski, Erbil Dedication Today

Erbil will have a very nice hotel in a year or so, when The Park Hotel by Kempinski should open. Kempinski is a German brand that is 110 years old this year, with 60 properties, and another 40 under various stages of development. It is supposed to be 5 star, and judging by the Kempinski website, it will be very nice.

Erbil currently has a hotel shortage, as all the current properties are busy and full. The level of quality that Kempinski will bring will be most welcome. All the delegations and visitors and business people need another nice place to stay.

I heard a couple of Americans say that the new hotel would be providing jobs for local people, and I should have said what was on my mind, that would the local people who work there be trained so that the service level is very good, or will foreign workers be imported? This is a problem right now. Foreign workers are in some hotels and homes and working construction and other jobs because local workers are difficult to get, and don't always have the skills, and are asking for more money than outsiders.

There has to be local skills improvement, so that local workers fill the majority of jobs, with foreign support and training. The economic boom in Kurdistan is not meant to form welfare states like Saudi Arabia, where the majority of residents are dependent upon the government, mostly young people who have nothing better to do and are impressionable enough to cause trouble.